Human Resource Management - Two Models

For any social group to perform its tasks efficiently and achieve its common
objectives, the management of its most important resources - the people - is of
utmost importance.

Until about the 1970s the task of ‘finding and controlling
people’ was handled by Personnel Management which was largely an
administrative function, dealing with the management and control of
subordinates.

The concept of Human Resource Management developed with a more
strategic level of thinking about the nature and role of people (as total
24hr per day human beings) working in organisations which are ‘cultures’
in their own right.

Recent thinking has moved from the control-based
model to the compliance model.

The soft edge of the latter involves eliciting employee commitment and
expecting effectiveness and efficiency to follow.

The hard edge of the latter involves ridding the organisation of
unnecessary layers of middle management which, when stripped of control
functions, have very little by way of value added.

The management task is to
cause the people to be as creative and productive as possible.